


if i could be the only one (to drain the life from those lifeless eyes)

by WattStalf



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, General warnings for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-21 13:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: Would you ever kill your soul mate?





	if i could be the only one (to drain the life from those lifeless eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> I played around a little bit with the world in this one, but the basic premise is "only your soul mate can kill you" so yeah  
> ?????? it's been one year since I posted my first Baccano fic and my love for this ship is still going strong even though i kinda ran out of steam for fics for them

Lua Klein wants to die.

For so long, that’s all she’s wanted, and she can’t even really put her finger on why. Perhaps she forgot it somewhere along the way, or perhaps she never had a reason to begin with, but that’s the only thing she can ever remember truly  _ wanting _ . Everything else leaves her feeling as dull, as empty, as ever, but when she imagines dying- violently, peacefully, any sort of way as long as it’s unnatural- she’s filled with what can only be described as  _ desire _ .

She wants to die, and she wants it to be an unnatural death, at the hands of someone else, but life has other plans for her. If you have a soul mate, they’re the only thing that can kill you, other than dying of old age. It can be unfair, at times, because there are those who  _ don’t _ have soul mates, and anyone or anything can kill them, and for those like Lua, who want to die, are out of luck, if they happen to have a soul mate.

Just once, she grows curious enough to try to kill herself, just to see if it will work, deciding that, even if she dies an unsatisfactory death, it won’t matter once she’s dead anyway. She has to know what she’s dealing with, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how much she suffers, how close to death she becomes- she can’t die.

Her family scolds her for behaving so stupidly and never mention it again.

~X~

Ladd Russo wants to kill.

For so long, that’s all he’s wanted, and he can’t even really put his finger on why. Perhaps he forgot somewhere along the way, or perhaps he never had a reason to begin with, but to him, it is the most important thing. He wants plenty of things, but no other idea fills him with so much excitement, no other idea leaves him feeling true  _ desire _ .

Just hurting people is fun at first, but it always leaves him craving more, leaves his hands twitching and his mind plagued with images that he has not yet seen. And once he  _ has _ seen them, once he’s watched the light bleeding from someone’s eyes, he becomes addicted. The fun of it is not knowing, because not everyone can be killed by him, and sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much he hurts them, because they just keep coming back.

Ladd is strong enough now that people can barely get close to him, but he’s had enough close calls in the past that he knows that he must have a soul mate. No one can kill him, and he assumes that he knows his soul mate, that it’s the girl who has always been by his side. The two of them are unkillable, and will be together for the rest of their lives, because they’re soul mates and they’re protected.

When Leila is killed, it changes everything.

~X~

It’s not as hard as he expects, opening up to a new possibility, though perhaps that is because he pushes his past so far out of his mind that it might as well have never happened to begin with. Or perhaps it’s because Lua is so breathtakingly beautiful that it only takes one glance at her to fall head over heels, even before he’s plucked up the courage to go talk to her- not that that takes him longer than about a minute and a half.

She’s cold to him, and he’s not sure if he finds that off putting or alluring, but whatever the case, he takes it as a challenge and won’t let it go, not until he either makes some sort of progress or she comes out and tells him to get lost. Their conversations keep falling flat, but she never tells him to leave, so he refuses to give up hope that he might get through to her at some point.

And then she says something that throws him off for a moment. “Would you ever kill your soul mate?”

“Huh?” He blinks, before regaining his composure and grinning at her. “Now, now, who says I even have a soul mate, dollface?”

“If you did, then,” she replies.

“That’s a pretty weird question, you know?” he asks. “Well, because you’ve asked so nicely, I’ll at least tell you that I  _ do _ have a soul mate. At least, I’ve been unkillable up until now! And I’m sure you’re gonna ask, how do I know that I’m unkillable? What sort of dangerous things do I do, that would cause me to find a little thing like that out?”

Suddenly, she’s looking at him with more interest than before, hanging onto his every word. “Have you ever killed anyone before?” However, her soft tone does not change at all, sounding just as flat as before.

“It’s something of a hobby,” he replies. “Now, you wanna tell me why you asked something like that?”

“You never really answered.” For a fraction of a second, he swears that he sees a flicker of a smile on her face, though he may have imagined it. Whatever the case, this is the most he’s gotten her to say, and he wants to keep her talking, no matter what.

“I don’t know if I would or not,” he says with a shrug. “I’m in the business of killing people who don’t expect it, who think they’re untouchable when they really aren’t. Hell, if I could kill  _ other _ people’s soul mates...now  _ that _ would be  _ fun _ ! But my own? I just don’t know.”

“I have a soul mate too,” she says.

“I figured as much. So, what, you want them to kill you? You know, normally, I would never kill somebody asking for it. It’s as simple as that,” says Ladd, shaking his head. “But for a pretty lady like you...I wouldn’t mind seeing how I feel later on down the road.”

“I never said I wanted  _ you _ to kill me,” she murmurs, and this time, he knows that he doesn’t imagine her smile, and if he could pinpoint the moment he  _ really _ fell in love with her, it would be right here and now.

“Angel, you never had to.”

“And if we aren’t even soul mates?”

“Then I’ll find a way to kill you anyway! I said killing someone else’s would be even more fun, didn’t I?”

~X~

Lua doesn’t know why she lets herself get so swept up in Ladd Russo. She’s never been interested in relationships, and if she were to pursue one, she always assumed it would strictly be to have them kill her. However, Ladd doesn’t even try, claiming that it won’t be fun unless they wait, unless he kills everyone who wants it less than she does first, and he always talks like that, coming up with wild goals that she isn’t even sure if he can achieve.

She falls in love with him and his promises, and everything else about him, which surprises her. All she wanted was somebody who could kill her, but she finds herself enjoying the time she spends with this man so much that living a bit longer doesn’t seem so bad, at least not as long as it’s simply used as a means of killing time before the big event.

She knows that he won’t be able to kill her if she turns out to not be his soul mate, but she wants to believe in his promise that he’ll find a way to do it anyway.


End file.
